Another significant benefit of the year round system pointed by the proponents is that the YRE system offers year round assistance for children who need additional time to catch up. As intersession classes are followed up immediately children do not have to wait until summer classes to catch up with their difficult subjects. "While changing the calendar year in itself can provide many benefits, the importance of intersession instruction cannot be overstated. Those additional instructional days and weeks can spell the difference between success and failure for many students" (Stenvall, (2001) p. 21). On the other hand there are also disadvantages to the year round education system. First and foremost is the administrative burnout. Management working round the year can feel it quite stressful and the same applies for teachers as well. Most teachers use the summer breaks to complete their certification requirements and other courses and the year round schedule just makes it all the more harder for them. "Teachers cannot complete certification requirements or get higher degrees during the summer" (Kneese, 2000, 13). Another major disadvantage of YRE is that it disturbs family vacations and childcare. With children attending different tracks or different schools it would not be possible to have family time together. Last but not the least is the cost of air-conditioning for YRE and it is only profitable for most schools if enrollments are higher.

An Evaluation of YRE

Some states particularly, California, Virginia, Texas, Florida and Arizona have implemented YRE widely and find it successful. In Fairfax county, Virginia, the Fairfax Public county Schools initiated a special program called EXCEL in 1999 focused on improving the educational outcome of schools with the highest percentage of minority, low income and limited English proficiency students. All the 20 schools, which were selected for the project, were changed to year round system keeping in mind the advantages of the intersession opportunities and continuous learning process. The evaluation in 2004 showed that within four years 14 of the 20 schools had already exceeded the expectations and had achieved accreditation benchmarks. [Paul Regnier] Fairfax County is one success story in the implementation of year round schooling. Similar success...

However, some schools that had adopted the year round schooling system for many years had to revert back to traditional system citing very little academic improvement with high cost of running year round. (air conditioning, staff salaries). Prince William County School in Virginia and Romeoville, Illinois are notable examples of switch back to traditional system.[Rasberry]
Conclusion

Reorganizing the school calendar is one of the highly debated topics in the educational sector. There are definitely positive and negative aspects to the reform and change has to be carefully planned out and implemented. In states such as California and Florida the overcrowded schools have virtually forced school boards into considering multi-track YRE as the only viable option especially when budgetary constraints do not allow for more building expenditures. From this perspective, YRE is definitely a positive solution. Besides the resource optimization however, the educational outcome for YRE and traditional system does not seem to differ much and research has not shown any conclusive evidence favoring YRE. More comprehensive research is awaited.

Bibliography

Deborah a. McAllister and Susan M. Bothman, (Fall 2004), 'Culminating Experience Action Research Projects', Accessed April 3rd 2008, Eric Database (ED495484)

Mollie Louis Trewartha, (2007), 'A Focus Group Study of Community Members' Perception About Year round Education in Michigan's Copper Country', Accessed April 3rd 2008, ERIC Database (ED499805)

Glines, D. (2002). Year Round Education. In the encyclopedia of Education. (Vol 7, 2698-2701). New York: MacMillan Reference USA

Shields, C.M. (2000). Year round schooling: Promises and pitfalls. Lanham, MD:

Scarecrow Press.

Stenvall, M.J. (2001). Balancing the calendar for year-round learning. Principal,

Paul Regnier, (Sep 2004), "Project Excel shows what can be accomplished when a large school system focuses on its poorest-performing schools." Principal, vol. 84 no. 1

7)Rasberry, Quinn (1992). Year-round schools may not be the answer. (ERIC accession…